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Topic Review (Newest First)

12-16-2012 12:59 AM

cliffson1

What Castlemaid said is critical to being a good breeder regardless of the size or setup of the kennel!!!!

12-16-2012 12:37 AM

martemchik

All else equal...I'll go with a breeder that keeps their dogs inside. It's a personal thing, not based on anything scientific or even logical. Just like to see that the dog is a pet first and a breeding animal second. Again...this is an all else equal thing and I would never rule out a breeder that has kennels. What selzer stated is probably very true, the more dogs you have the more likely it is that you are producing an all around "better" dog. The breeder isn't just using one female to get all their pups from, and is actually continually improving their lines by holding dogs back. If you intend to keep all dogs inside, it would probably get quite difficult at 5 or 6, unless you live in a mansion.

12-15-2012 09:58 PM

selzer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freestep

True Haus has a great facility, IMO. They have an indoor-outdoor kennel setup. There are large chainlink runs attached to a kennel building, so that part of the kennel enclosure is indoors. Inside the kennel building there is a grooming tub, tack room, and air conditioning in the summer (it's hot here but winters are mild). Just outside the building there is a grooming table and a powerful force dryer (the kind I would kill to have). The entire property is fenced so that the dogs can get out and exercise, and they have a big training field with all the equipment. They do rotate dogs in and out of the house, so they get household time as well. I am not sure how many dogs they have at the moment, but it's too many to keep them all in the house at once.

Personally, if I were a breeder I would want to keep it small so that my dogs could ALL be housedogs, but that's just not possible for a lot of folks.

There is a problem with this. We need to breed for the future, else, we really should not breed. This does not mean we keep a puppy out of every litter we produce, but we should keep puppies from our litters, raise them, grow them out, and if they are breedworthy, add them to our breeding program.

If you start your program with two bitches, no dog, yes they can both be house dogs, most like. But the moment you start keeping pups to raise, keeping a bitch who is retired, taking a pup back that did not work out, keeping a puppy that seems to have an issue, you are no longer in the range of them all being able to run freely in your home all the time. With multiple intact females, crate/rotate or kennel will most likely become inevitable at some point.

I think that you can probably get a better pup genetically from a medium size breeder who keeps a number of females and has a few litters per year. The kennel set up does not speak of the quality of the pups, but the cleanliness of the kennel may speak of the health and dedication of the breeder. You want a breeder's dogs to be kept in decent conditions, because no one wants to support someone who is using animals foully to make money.

But the requirement that the breeders dogs must all be house-dogs limits how good of a breeder that breeder can be.

12-15-2012 06:55 PM

onyx'girl

Quote:

Personally, if I were a breeder I would want to keep it small so that my dogs could ALL be housedogs, but that's just not possible for a lot of folks

Co-owns could accomplish that if you trusted who you were in partnership with.

12-15-2012 04:38 PM

bethany.cole2013

I'm not particularly interested in becoming a big, commercial breeder. I would want to be more of a smaller hobby breeder, as I love having the company of my doggies in the house with me and I wouldn't feel as comfortable with having to hire people to take care of my dogs for me. I was mainly just curious about people's opinions of these larger setups and what they may look like.

12-15-2012 01:05 PM

holland

The leerburg site was interesting-it would also be interesting to see what set ups people have for their dogs whether they are breeders or not

12-15-2012 12:21 PM

Freestep

True Haus has a great facility, IMO. They have an indoor-outdoor kennel setup. There are large chainlink runs attached to a kennel building, so that part of the kennel enclosure is indoors. Inside the kennel building there is a grooming tub, tack room, and air conditioning in the summer (it's hot here but winters are mild). Just outside the building there is a grooming table and a powerful force dryer (the kind I would kill to have). The entire property is fenced so that the dogs can get out and exercise, and they have a big training field with all the equipment. They do rotate dogs in and out of the house, so they get household time as well. I am not sure how many dogs they have at the moment, but it's too many to keep them all in the house at once.

Personally, if I were a breeder I would want to keep it small so that my dogs could ALL be housedogs, but that's just not possible for a lot of folks.

12-15-2012 10:01 AM

Rerun

OP, setting aside the debating going on here - you said you are interested in a commercial breeding facility set up and seeing photos of one.

WHO said anything about no socialization???? You don't know if commercial kennels socialize their puppies, for you to jump to that conclusion, because you equate commercial kennels with a lack of socialization doesn't make it so...sorry. The fact remains that all those kennels I mentioned and others have plenty of their pups living in homes. We are all entitled to our opinions, we are all entitled to our preferences, we are NOT entitled to our facts. I have no problem with your personal preference that you prefer a hobby breeder.....I just don't think it is fair to project (to newbies) that they can't get just a good puppy from a commercial operation when thousands of people have and still do.

That was in response to posts that genetics was everything, that it doesn't matter if the puppy was socialized or not as long as the genetics behind it were good. I think you can take a puppy with good genetics and completely mess it up by not socializing it. Yes you may be able to make up for that later on if the genetics are good. There are commercial breeders who socialize and there are ones who don't. I was pointing out that socialization is critical whether the puppy is from a commercial kennel or a hobby breeder regardless of the genetics.

Why don't more breeders put an emphasis on socializing and exposure to new people and things before the puppy goes home?

I'm sure a good puppy can be obtained from a commercial breeder - the respected ones employ people to handle their puppies and work with them so they receive a ton of hands on care and socialization. The ones who don't do that, well despite good genetics those puppies are at a disadvantage when going to new homes because they haven't been around anything.

I never said you can't get a good puppy that way, it just depends on whether the breeder did socializing or not. Hobby breeders are just as guilty of not doing it as commercial breeders. To the OP whatever breeding setup you prefer, make sure that socializing puppies is made a priority.

12-15-2012 08:50 AM

Castlemaid

I just hope that as the OP understands, since she has interest in becoming a breeder, that the kennel set-up is not what makes a good breeder, nor the size of the operation, but the understanding of the dogs, pedigrees, and how to determine which dogs are breedworthy - and that comes from a life-time of involvement with training dogs in all venues, performance and work.

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